the sharpened heart
by Domenic
Summary: Pre-movie AU. How to create and shape a god of death. UPDATE: Part 2
1. prologue

**Title: the sharpened heart**

**Fandom: The Book of Life**

**Summary: Pre-movie AU. How to create and shape a god of death.**

**A/N: Besides drawing from the canonical movie, also referring to the "Art Of" book. Started developing this before creator/director tweets, and will continue to not take those into account, and identifying this as clear AU. **

**Disclaimer: I own nothing related to The Book of Life.**

prologue

Once upon a time, there was a mother who had recently given birth to a daughter. She was summoned before the priests, along with her infant.

After reading the signs known to them, the priests had identified the newborn girl as a necessary sacrifice to Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca. The mother and daughter were given appropriate escort, to guard them until the specific time prophecized for sacrificial rites.

The mother of the girl was at peace with this, and even thought it an honor, believing the sweet words of the priests. She soothed her daughter and smiled down at her, also wishing to keep her in innocent and blissful ignorance; so the baby girl died in relative comfort and joy, spared from despair at least.

The gods Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca took the spirit of the slain child for their own purposes. They reshaped her into a deity like themselves, though still an infant. She was made to be their sword to conquer and rule one of the untamed territories of the dead, the Midland, **Mictecacihuatl**—which was right below the living mortal plane. In fact, a piece of Mictecacihuatl had been used for the child diety's creation.

To deal with her emotional needs, they first left her in the Candle Maker's care. They also left her with a name: La Muerte.

In the Cave of Souls, La Muerte was reborn happy, curious and mischevious, darting around the cave with as much life as the mortals' sacred candles. The Candle Maker tended to her needs and began her education. He had never nurtured a young life before, and did his best. The Candle Maker grew to care deeply for his charge, despite misgivings he had over what Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca—gods that outranked him—had done to ensure her existence. Consequently he felt rather guilty for abiding by Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca's will reinforced by a coerced promise under the ancient rules—for it was currently forbidden to tell La Muerte the truth behind her birth.

For her part, La Muerte very much enjoyed making her guardian laugh.

She also took great pleasure in visiting the mortal world, a land she was always encouraged by the Candle Maker to explore, and Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca had always approved of this. One of La Muerte's favorite things about the humans were their games, especially those that dealt with chance.

When La Muerte was old enough, Quetzalcoatl alone returned for her. He began her training, took her to the wild Mictecacihuatl, the realm which called to her once she touched the ground. But the land did not welcome her, rebellious and chaotic as it was, and overrun with demons that terrorized the dead—and those among the deceased that clung to their wicked ways, and oppressed their fellows.

But despite her age, the child La Muerte was still a diety of considerable power, and Quetzalcoatl would ensure she reached maturity with her potential met. Still, she would periodically be taken back to the Candle Maker, for the rest of her body and soul; and still her trips to the mortal world were encouraged; and so she drifted between the realms.

Tezcatlipoca, on the other hand, made preparations to create another diety. He and Quetzalcoatl had agreed to divide the work as such, with each training a child deity into maturity and complete power. There were still more wild territories of the dead to claim, the Mictlantecuhtli, the Lowlands underneath Mictecacihuatl. It was there that souls fell when the living forgot them; and they too forgot they were ever human, becoming monsters...

A few mortal years after the human mother had sacrificed the daughter that would become La Muerte, the priests read new signs, for Tezcatlipoca had made his decision, with Quetzalcoatl's agreement. Another woman was summoned before them, with her recently born son. They too were given appropriate escort, guarding them until the specific time prophecized for sacrificial rites.

The mother of the boy was quiet. She said not a word, until she drew members of her escort into talk. She told them stories, tall tales, little anecdotes of her son, how he had almost been crawling by himself the other day. When her escort was relatively unmoved by that, she then drew them into riddling games. Once the guards seemed too focused on puzzling out her tangled words, the mother made a break for it with her boy.

But she was caught, and dragged back kicking and screaming. Her son cried loudly, distressed by her fear. The son's mother had managed to run too far, there was no more time to bring the sacrfice to the ceremonial space, to conduct the precise ritual. The most important part could still be salvaged at least, they had to perform the sacrifice on time.

Pulled from his wailing mother, whose grip had been so tight she had left bloody claw marks on his soft skin, the baby boy died terrified and acutely aware of pain on his arms.

Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl took the newly slain child's spirit, and also remade him into an infant diety, incorporating a piece of the Mictlantecuhtli into his creation.

Again, they left the newborn god in the Cave of Souls, with the Candle Maker.

**A/N: Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! Any feedback is appreciated. Now, some more things specifically about this fic and the cultural terms/concepts it uses: I'm taking artistic license, because according to online research i.e. Wikipedia, **_**Mictecacihuatl**_** and **_**Mictlantecuhtli**_** are the names of death gods from Aztec mythology, who were married rulers that oversaw Mictlan, name for the underworld. I had read some people suggest that **_**The Book of Life**_**'s La Muerte and Xibalba could have drawn some inspiration from those death gods. When I looked at the wiki page for Mictecacihuatl, Queen of the Underworld, it said she was also "known as the **_**Lady of the Dead**_**, since it is believed that she was born, then sacrificed as an infant"**—**and that kickstarted inspiration for this whole fic. On Mictlantecuhtli's wiki page, it said that "after Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca created the world, they put their creation in order and placed Mictlantecuhtli and his wife in the underworld," and that led to their inclusion in this fic. More on them later, and even more elaboration on this prologue as the fic goes along, since not everything has been entirely explained yet.**


	2. part 1

**Title: the sharpened heart**

**Fandom: The Book of Life**

**Summary: Pre-movie AU. How to create and shape a god of death.**

**A/N: Besides drawing from the canonical movie, also referring to the "Art Of" book. Started developing this before creator/director tweets, and will continue to not take those into account, and identifying this as clear AU. **

**Disclaimer: I own nothing related to The Book of Life.**

part 1

At the sound of a flame guttering and dying, the Candle Maker turned around. He frowned; on a cliff above, a candle he had just lit was out already. It was still so tall, fresh, and new...

His frown deepened when it started turning black. Another human automatically becoming a Forgotten monster, his or her candle would soon turn entirely black, then break into ashes as they drifted down below to—

The Candle Maker froze when it started to rapidly melt instead. Candles of the dead that became Forgotten did not rapidly melt like that. The last time he had seen something like this, it was...

Remembering when La Muerte had first come to him, the Candle Maker immediately waved a hand. The rapidly melting candle now had enough space on the rock cliff, no longer crowded by other candles, which had obediently flown to another spot in the cave at the wax deity's command.

Not only did the newly extinguished candle grow in size as it melted, it continued to shift from a pale yellow to a deep black. Soon it was the size of an infant. Then the black wax rippled, and it changed into a bundle of cloth, with green symbols stitching themselves into the dark fabric.

The dark bundle gave a loud wail, making Candle Maker flinch. The bundle squirmed as it cried, and eventually tumbled off the stone face.

Candle Maker rushed forward to catch it. He fumbled with the bundle, making it shriek louder as it slipped and bounced between his hands. Finally he had a firm grip on the bundle, and feeling suddenly exhausted, the deity slumped against a wall. He held the wailing bundle close to him. La Muerte had not been screeching when she first came to him, but had squirmed just as much, full of energy and with cloth appendages that grasped curiously, all while she giggled and gurgled.

But presently in Candle Maker's grip, the new bundle's crying dwindled down to sniffles; and then finally cooing calmly against his chest.

The Book of Life flew to Candle Maker's side, flapping sympathetically.

The wax deity wondered why he was even surprised by this turn of events. The underworld was _big_, after all; even Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca probably figured it was too big for little La Muerte by herself (but wow, she was getting taller, and the Candle Maker fully expected her to be even bigger the next time she came home, she just seemed to be growing so fast).

The deity felt a tug on his beard, and looked down to find a cloth appendage playing with the cloudy facial hair, cooing curiously. When she had been that age, La Muerte had done the same. Candle Maker wondered what the new deity child would look like when it was fully developed; some other candy like La Muerte? It had been a surprise when her skin had grown into place, and to find it made of white sugar.

Candle Maker frowned, already really starting to worry for the new child deity in his care. The Book of Life flapped anxiously, and Candle Maker startled when the dark bundle started crying again.

"Woah hey now, it's okay," the adult deity said, trying to brighten his voice and be soothing all at once, realizing too late that perhaps his darkening mood had lowered the infant's own. Candle Maker straightened up, and tried rocking the bundle back and forth. The baby still cried, and the Book of Life flipped to a page that the Candle Maker obediently began to read aloud, taking the cue from his old friend.

When that did not work, the tome switched to a page of poetry, rather than prose. And when that did not work, the Book of Life switched to a page of songs.

The dark bundle quieted as the Candle Maker sang, and the adult deity's mood really did brighten. Already he was imagining all the songs from the Book of Life he could show the baby; and from those same pages, bright pictures the baby could really see once its eyes grew into place...

"I'M BACK!" Screamed a young girl's voice, and immediately the dark bundle started wailing again. The Candle Maker's eyes widened, recognizing La Muerte.

Not long after, a stream of yellow marigold petals flew quickly before him, the bundle, and the Book of Life. The petals scooted across the Book of Life's spine as a way of greeting, before coming to the Candle Maker's side, playing with the stone jewelry in his beard until the dark bundle's wailing grew loud enough to draw her attention. La Muerte's petal form jerked at the sound, but did not cease moving. Then the petals immediately swirled around the bundle and started poking experimentally at it.

The Candle Maker immediately tried warning her; "Woah, honey, be caref—"

But the baby deity's crying was starting to dwindle, as it made confused and curious sounds, reaching out for the petals with fabric appendages, trying to touch. La Muerte let him make contact, her petals floating in place; and sometimes they would dart out of the way, teasing him, and that actually drew a giggle from the dark bundle.

The petals came together and combined to form La Muerte's sugar body, about the size of a four-year-old human child. Candle Maker ran a careful eye over his charge. The child wore her yellow and red dress, flowing down and covering the ground like himself and other legless deities. Her long, dark curling hair was wound into one thick braid, with marigold flowers pinned along its length.

But neither the garments or accessories or herself were in pristine condition.

Her dress was ripped, the flowers in her braid were shredded; the braid itself was now halfway undone, and odds and ends like twigs and pebbles and foreign bone fragment were caught sticking out of her hair. There were gouges cut into the sugar skin of her face, along her cheek, above her right eye; other cuts were on her arms. Some wounds to her body, and damage to her clothes and accessories, seemed to be healing and self-repairing faster than others, and Candle Maker could only assume they were the oldest ones inflicted, with the most time to recover and let the divine immune system work.

Still, Candle Maker frowned. But before he could offer a soothing spell, or ask where Quetza was hanging about after bringing La Muerte back home, the child herself started her questioning. She now poked experimentally at the bundle with her fingers.

"What's this? Can I name it?" The older child's yellow eyes were bright and her smile wide. "Quetza was telling me all about naming spells today—"

The Candle Maker was stopped from saying anything again, when Quetza's own voice cut in.

"_His_ name is _Xibalba_," Quetzalcoatl said, as the large feathered serpent finally entered. His voice had been weary, and soon he gathered up his coils and curled up, his multi-colored plumage flattening down. "I will not say anything more on the subject until my brother arrives," the serpent deity said, effectively making both La Muerte and the Candle Maker's mouths snap shut and cutting off the questions they were about to bombard him with.

Shaking his head, the Candle Maker warmed up a soothing spell in one hand, glowing with a regenerative candlelight.

"La Muerte, remember to hold still while I do the thing," Candle Maker reminded the younger deity—no longer the youngest in the cave, as the squirming bundle in his other hand reminded him. But La Muerte still had a tendency to fidget while he tried to heal her, and that just made the process harder.

This time she made a rather valiant effort to hold still while the Candle Maker quickly ran his glowing hand over her injuries. The spell examined her first, and based on its results, he only focused on speeding up recovery and adding pain relief, while letting her built-in immune system do its thing. La Muerte did end up moving, but since it was to slump down slightly and sigh with relief, the Candle Maker was more pleased than focused on adjusting his spellwork to accomodate the new movement.

When La Muerte jerked and yelled, the Candle Maker jumped. For a second he was confused, because he knew the sort of healing spell he used should not have stung, not in this case. Then he looked down, and found the bundled baby—Xibalba—pulling vigorously on the older child's licorice hair and making curious noises.

La Muerte bit her lip when the feathered serpent stirred, but that was only to roll his head over. He did not wake up, and when the older child deity was certain he would stay asleep, La Muerte shouted at the baby, "_Let go_!"

Candle Maker had not expected the infant to listen, but he had expected him to start crying at La Muerte's loud and angry voice. Instead, the small Xibalba pulled more insistently on her hair.

The older child growled, the rest of her hair sharpening into aggressive points. She did not aim the sharpened points of licorice hair at the baby and fire did not light up in her hands, but still the Candle Maker intervened. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, very small underneath his palm.

"Xibalba doesn't know any better."

"How, I'm telling him!" La Muerte snapped, but the Candle Maker could hear the question in her voice.

The elder deity released La Muerte's shoulder and tickled Xibalba, making him let go of the licorice hair as he giggled and flailed. The older child's strand of hair flinched back, rejoining the rest. La Muerte rubbed the mobile licorice strands, calming them to the point that they no longer spiked, and were quite still curls again. But she glared at the giggling bundle, still pouting.

"He's only a baby right now, babies don't get words right away," Candle Maker said, both arms back to holding the bundle. "You've seen human babies, right?"

"Yeah, but he's not human," La Muerte insisted, though her voice wavered and she sounded doubtful.

"He's got similarities to a human baby, just like you're similar to a human kid."

Though La Muerte seemed like she understood, and even gave a stiff nod, she still looked upset. But the infant deity kept giggling, and Candle Maker made him laugh harder when he bounced him in his arms. Slowly the older child smiled, and she swept out her arms, reaching.

"I want to hold him next," La Muerte declared.

"Okay, but you gotta be careful," the Candle Maker said with a grin, though his voice was serious. "I mean, _really_ careful." He gave her the baby, guiding her arms into the right position. "There, you gotta support him—right, exactly. Huh, I didn't know you were an expert baby holder," Candle Maker said, teasing La Muerte, and making the older child giggle.

"Not really, it's just my first time," La Muerte replied, taking the Candle Maker literally and just finding him very silly, as she normally thought him to be. The baby reached out for her licorice hair again, a strand of it over her shoulder. That strand quickly pulled away, and La Muerte made sure all of her hair was behind her back and well away from the baby.

"Xi-bal-ba," she slowly sounded out the name Quetza had given him, carefully peering down at the bundled infant. Inside the bundle—well, there did not seem to be an inside; more like the baby _was_ a cloth bundle.

He was made of stubby arms of tangled fabric; a torso of crinkled fabric that flowed down into a tail shape; and something of a head made by the folds of fabric. But when La Muerte gently ran a hand over him, she found no real opening in the cloth, it was just folded over, and she could not see whatever was beneath it. As far as she could tell, there were no facial features. La Muerte carefully and experimentally lifted the baby up so she could look underneath, and turned him around in her hands. Still, no break in the cloth.

"Is he just made out of fabric?" La Muerte asked the Candle Maker, and he prepared for the impending storm of questions. "Doesn't he have eyes? What about a mouth, I didn't see a mouth. Was I just made out of cloth when I was a baby? Without eyes and mouth and hair and everything? You said I was a baby before, didn't you? Not just now, but before."

"Uh huh," the Candle Maker said, remembering when La Muerte had seen her first human baby, and immediately asked him more about where she came from, and he had given her a very edited explanation that seemed to satisfy her at the time.

"You were a baby too, a lot like him, but red fabric instead of black."

"I didn't _stay_ cloth though," La Muerte pointed out with a certain superiority. The infant Xibalba then reached for the collar of her dress, and almost had it until La Muerte quickly pulled him away from her body. "For the most part."

The motion had apparently been too quick, since the baby started to cry again. La Muerte tried to calm him, but eventually she had to return him to the Candle Maker.

La Muerte looked guilty, but Candle Maker, rocking little Xibalba in his arms, merely continued their talk, saying, "Nope, you didn't. Eventually you grew skin—"

The Candle Maker paused, considering, then tried slowing his explanation down. Due to the agreement he had to make by the ancient rules, the wax deity needed to edit some of what he could tell La Muerte about how she came to be, but this particular part...well, he could skim over it less. (Though he thought it best to leave out the part where the transformation was rather painful for La Muerte.)

"Well, that is, you were made out of cloth before—red cloth—" He added, once La Muerte opened his mouth to correct him. "—but as you got older, part of the cloth you were made of changed—"

The Candle Maker swept out one hand toward La Muerte, as if presenting her to an invisible audience. The older child preened, while the infant shook his beard, making its stone jewelry rattle.

"—the red cloth turned to sugar, and you grew real hands with fingers, eyes and mouth, a nasal hole—red cloth turned to dark licorice hair, with marigold flowers already pinned in it—the whole shebang, pretty much." The Candle Maker's smile widened when La Muerte giggled. "Leftover red cloth changed too, moving around until it made for a nice little dress, now with yellow in it too."

"And that'll happen to Xibalba?" La Muerte asked, staring at the dark cloth bundle with wide eyes.

"Yeah, when he's older," the Candle Maker replied, smiling as he watched the baby keep playing with his beard.

"And not long after that, Xibalba will start training with me," another voice said, and the Candle Maker whirled around to find Tezca had arrived.

Stalking deeper into the cave, Tezcatlipoca turned his head—effectively masked and hidden by a large jaguar skull he wore—toward the feathered serpent. "What ails him?"

"I think he's just tired," La Muerte said, her voice polite.

"Child, wake him for me," Tezca ordered, and La Muerte, though looking very reluctant, obeyed and shifted to flower petals that darted to Quetza and began to tickle him.

With his cloak of the night sky dragging against the ground, Tezca approached the Candle Maker, who drew the infant deity closer to him.

"It's Xibalba who should be sleeping; the other child as well. We need to talk in private, secure agreements..." Tezca trailed off, though his voice was slightly annoyed. Immediately after, the baby laughed louder once he pulled particularly hard on the Candle Maker's beard, making the adult deity yelp.

Candle Maker felt some amusement to hear Tezca take what sounded a lot like a calming breath. Not very charitable of him, to take some pleasure in the implication that Tezca was maybe having a headache; but he was not looking forward to again promising under the ancient rules not to tell Xibalba the truth about his origins, as Tezca had so heavily hinted with _securing agreements_. If La Muerte could not know, there was no reason Xibalba should be any different.

The wax deity immediately made Xibalba release his beard once he heard Quetza hiss. Candle Maker shot the serpent deity a warning glare, even if the other god was his superior. His body tensed, preparing to take action if necessary. There were (unfortunately) many things Quetza could do with La Muerte, but threatening her like that was not one of them, especially in the Cave of Souls, a place that should always be her sanctuary.

But it proved to be just a hiss, Quetza made no move to use the fangs he warningly bared to La Muerte, and the Candle Maker's body relaxed. Still, La Muerte's petals quickly darted away and back to the Candle Maker's side. They soon materialized into her full form, and she wrapped a hand into the wax folds of her guardian's robe. Candle Maker removed one hand from carrying Xibalba, reaching down to gently hold La Muerte's shoulder.

Tezca growled at the feathered serpent, impatient. "Brother—"

"I'm well aware of the import, Tezcatlipoca," Quetza snapped at his sibling, while he unfurled his coils and slithered forward. Then he glanced to La Muerte, who ducked her head. "Shouldn't she be sleeping?" Then he glanced to the cooing baby. "Shouldn't he?"

"_You_ were the one who nodded off," Tezca snapped back.

The Candle Maker rolled his eyes. "Look, you guys, just give me a few minutes to settle the kids down, 'kay?" The wax deity ignored the mutinous look La Muerte gave him.

"Make it _quick_," Tezca ordered, while he followed Quetza, already leading the way to a more private alcove of stone.

The wax deity resisted a sigh or an otherwise obvious show of negativity, not wanting to cloud La Muerte and Xibalba's mood any further. Candle Maker took the child La Muerte's hand, and with the infant Xibalba in the other arm, he guided them to a place where they could sleep, with the Book of Life keeping watch over them.

**A/N: Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed. Any feedback is always appreciated. Another inspiration for this fic is scribblescrabblesdabble's excellent design of La Muerte and Xibalba as kids (which will come into play more later). Brainstorming behind setting up this age difference between La Muerte and Xibalba and their first meeting as such: I liked connecting them to that image in the original Disney animated **_**Sleeping Beauty**_**, with the older child prince meeting his princess bethrothed as a baby for the first time; I liked playing around with La Muerte's youthful imagery and Xibalba's elderly imagery by having La Muerte actually being the older of the two in spite of said imagery**—**which provided another detail on her being taller than him, and even another detail on her being (mostly) more mature than him. I wrote young La Muerte with sorta living, prehensile hair to explore her nature as a deity more, and I simply thought the idea would be neat. That's pretty much the same reason for having her, the Candlemaker, and ultimately Xibalba without legs in their normal bodies; but that was very much inspired by the "Art Of" book, where it said that La Muerte literally had no legs when they animated her, which added to making her movement and character more unique. Also exploring the nature of dieties with having La Muerte and Xibalba as babies not being fully formed when they came into being in the external world, with still needing to grow more body parts and being sorta nebulous beings before that.**


	3. part 2

**Title: the sharpened heart**

**Fandom: The Book of Life**

**Summary: Pre-movie AU. How to create and shape a god of death.**

**A/N: Besides drawing from the canonical movie, also referring to the "Art Of" book. Started developing this before creator/director tweets, and will continue to not take those into account, and identifying this as clear AU. **

**Disclaimer: I own nothing related to The Book of Life.**

part 2

La Muerte soon found the Balby Baby very annoying.

The child deity had come up with the nickname herself, though she would never admit to anyone it had been an accident. She far preferred claiming it as evidence of her own wit.

The second naming had happened when the infant had been crying _again_, and the Candle Maker spent _all _his attention on soothing him, while La Muerte might as well have been invisible. He finally paid attention to her when she said, "He sure is a fussy balby."

The Candle Maker had blinked, and arched a brow, asking her, "You mean 'baby,' right?"

La Muerte's eyes had widened, realizing what she had said. Then she tried to cover it up with an eye roll, crossing her arms and turning her face up, trying to be superior while thinking very quickly. "Xi-_balb_-a, _Balb_, _Balby_, _Baby_—it totally fits!"

The child had felt triumphant when Candle Maker laughed, and ruffled her hair and the marigold flowers in it. "Yeah, you got a point there."

But her sense of triumph was short-lived as Candle Maker turned back to the infant Xibalba, who persisted in his wailing.

La Muerte could not understand why the baby cried so much, why he was so fussy. When she had asked, the Candle Maker had just said it's what babies do, how they communicate. Immediately after that, she asked if she had ever cried so much when she'd been a baby. The Candle Maker had said, "Nah, not a lot;" and La Muerte had felt some irrational rush of superiority. It did not last long with the Candle Maker cooing and coddling the screaming infant Xibalba all the time.

La Muerte much preferred it when the dark bundle giggled, she loved his giggling; but giggles had been harder to draw from him lately, and crying easier to trigger. And it could go on and on, in an irritating, shrill and grating wail that got on La Muerte's nerves. The child deity resented being confined to her own room if she wanted to escape the baby's screaming. After Xibalba had arrived, the Candle Maker had taken great care in setting up a noiseproof spell around her room, so that her sleep would never be disturbed, and she could always have a quiet place whenever she wanted. But it was only her room, the rest of the cave could echo with infantile shrieking, and La Muerte missed being free to roam wherever she wanted without such noise.

The older child's resentment of the baby grew when she became increasingly certain that his crying was beginning to really tire Candle Maker out. She noticed the wax under her guardian's eyes was getting darker, and his smiles more tired. And then they were just sad. La Muerte was certain he was getting upset over the sleep he was losing.

Finally one night, when La Muerte was supposed to be sleeping, she slipped out of her room. The minute she was out of her personal stone entrance and beyond the noiseproof spell's reach, she heard Balby's crying. Squaring her shoulders, she swept confidently to the Candle Maker's quarters, now shared with the infant deity.

When La Muerte entered the space, she tried to ignore what had been her own bassinet, formerly red and yellow, now black and green, after Candle Maker had changed its color with a wave of his hand and repurposed it for Xibalba. The sugar deity was no baby, and did not even remember sleeping in that bassinet; but she knew it was hers. Was. Now it belonged to Xibalba. Not that he actually slept in the thing, not with him always crying and the Candle Maker carrying him everywhere.

When the Candle Maker saw her, he frowned with concern. "Did the spell break down? Did we wake you, honey?"

La Muerte snorted, and pointed at the screaming bundle in the elder deity's arms. "_He_'s the only one who'd wake me." Then she waved a hand, trying to make sure it was light and airy and generally unconcerned. "Don't worry, I was awake already." The older child went to Candle Maker's side, peering up at him and the baby.

"I can take a turn with Balby," La Muerte said, voice determined.

Candle Maker blinked at her, then smiled. "It's fine, I can take care of him by myself. You just go get some rest."

"I want to help," La Muerte said, trying very hard not to sound like she was whining. Balby whined, not her. Not anymore. She wasn't the baby—

_who got all the attention_

—anymore.

Her hand curled into a fist, and she raised it, flexing her sugar arm. "I can knock him out."

The Candle Maker blinked at her again, then waved a large hand at her, and he looked even more concerned. "That's okay, we're good. And knocking out's not really—"

"You want him to stop crying, and go to sleep, right?"

The Candle Maker's brow furrowed, and La Muerte felt the sudden urge to look down at the floor. "La Muerte, you know getting knocked out and going to sleep aren't the same thing."

The older child frowned—she wasn't _pouting_—and crossed her arms, looking away. "Okay, no, but it's not a big deal, he's still a god like us, he's tough, it won't hurt that much—"

"Honey, right now, he really is a baby first before he's a god, and he's still vulnerable." The Candle Maker sounded very patient, which only made La Muerte feel very small, even smaller than Balby. "Knocking him out would hurt him too much, and we don't want that."

The older child chewed her lip, then opened her mouth, feeling she should still defend her position more, she had her pride—then startled when the infant deity shrieked really loud. Really _really _loud. _Painfully_ loud. Not just painfully for her.

"...Is he hurting now?" La Muerte finally asked, really trying to listen closely to the infant Xibalba's cries, rather than trying to block them out, or only stopping at the droning wall of noise it always seemed to her.

Yes, it definitely—it sounded like he was hurting to her. She had heard pained screams before in Mictecacihuatl, from the human dead, and others...was she becoming too used to the sound, numb to it, is that why she had failed to notice it in Xibalba's shrieking before...?

Candle Maker drew the dark bundle closer to him, looking down at it with the same sad eyes La Muerte had been witnessing lately.

And she realized, it was not unlike how the Candle Maker sometimes looked after she returned from training in Mictecacihuatl all banged up; or how he always seemed, even just a little, while saying good-bye when Quetza had to take her away.

"Yeah, he is," the Candle Maker said, after he gave a heavy sigh.

"Where?" La Muerte asked, narrowing her eyes at the dark bundle, trying to find where he was hurt, and wondering why Candle Maker's healing spells weren't working yet, for surely he had tried them by now.

The Candle Maker shook his head. "It's not physical." The elder deity wouldn't look her in the eye. "A lot of the time it's bad dreams."

La Muerte bit her lip, remembering having a lot of bad dreams when she first started training in Mictecacihuatl, ones that made her cry and scream, and the Candle Maker would hold her just like he was holding the infant Xibalba. (Now, it was only _sometimes_ that she had bad dreams, they were happening less.)

The older child fidgeted with her hands, pulled on her hair, yanked out a flower, twirled it. Then she finally admitted in a small voice, "I don't know what to do."

Candle Maker looked down at her for a moment; then he scooted over, and patted the bed. "I know you've told me you're a big kid now, but if you want_—_just for tonight, okay?"

La Muerte immediately crawled into bed and under the covers with her guardian and the baby. For now, she ignored how before Xibalba's arrival, she had made claims that she was too old for sometimes curling up into bed with her guardian anymore.

"Just tonight," the Candle Maker repeated. "I don't want his crying keeping you up, but if you want to spend one night with us together_—all_ of us together_—_even with his crying, it's...well, it's okay for the night."

"Maybe he'll stop and go to sleep if we're all together?" La Muerte suggested.

The Candle Maker made a humming noise. "Never thought of that."

Balby didn't entirely stop and go to sleep even with all of them together, but La Muerte felt she slept very well, despite the noise.

Strange, but nice.

###

Candle Maker had stayed awake, and not only because of Xibalba's crying. Not directly.

The probable and main reason behind the baby's wailing, as Quetza and Tezca had put it on the day of the new child's arrival, ran through Candle Maker's mind:

_After the wax deity had promised his silence about Xibalba's true origins under the ancient rules, Quetza had narrowed his eyes at him._

_"How was Xibalba when he first arrived?"_

_"Crying_—_more like when a human baby's first born," Candle Maker said. "La Muerte wasn't like that at all, just...giggling and happy from the get-go."_

_"But you calmed him." Quetza's stare was considering, and even seemed concerned. It was not a question, for the feathered serpent had seen the infant deity quietly cooing with the Candle Maker._

_Though Tezca's eyes could not be seen from behind the skull jaguar mask, Candle Maker could feel the glare coming through the darkness of those bone sockets._

_"Yeah," the wax deity said, ignoring Tezca and focusing on his brother instead._

_Quetza's forked tongue flicked out, and the Candle Maker recognized that instance as a nervous tic._

_"It may be more...difficult, next time," Quetza said, and Tezca growled._

_"It is not necessary for the Candle Maker to know, brother," Tezca said, his voice low._

_The feathered serpent shook his head, not looking back at his brother, and instead remaining focused on the wax deity. "I guarantee it will happen again, and with some frequency. But that too will fade with time."_

_Candle Maker was starting to feel apprehensive, his imagination starting to cut loose. He shakily fished for an answer with a suggestion he was actually skeptical of. "So...he's even more like a normal human baby, about as fussy?"_

_Quetza paused, and the Candle Maker saw Tezca cross his clawed arms, and tilt his head, as if daring his brother to speak._

_"It won't be...'fussiness,' he'll be remembering the sensation of how he died," Quetza said, and Candle Maker was suddenly filled with the urge to hit something, just give it a good whack. "Only the sensation, the feeling of it_—_there'll be no conscious memory, he's too young for it_—_not to mention the spells repressing such recollection_—_"_

_"Um, Quetza, I don't want to interrupt_—_okay, obviously I want to interrupt_,_" the Candle Maker said, frowning. "You didn't bring any of this up when La Muerte first arrived." The wax deity's voice hardened even more. "Why?"_

_Quetza did not blink. "Because La Muerte's death was not as severe as Xibalba's."_

_The sound of candles reacting and roaring louder outside the private alcove was audible, and the Candle Maker had to exercise some control so as not to disturb the currently sleeping La Muerte and Xibalba. (Mortal lives behind the candles were unaffected, shielded by their own protection spells; and it was simply the nature of fire to react to him if he willed it or his composure cracked.)_

_"What is __**that **__supposed to mean?" Candle Maker ground out, his voice low._

_"It means La Muerte's human mother was perfectly obedient and calmly gave her child up, ensuring she was blissfully ignorant when death came," said Tezca, with hardly any inflection to his voice. "While Xibalba's human mother fought to keep her child, and the struggle greatly distressed him. Death took him at the height of his terror, and awareness."_

_Candlemaker transferred his desire to punch Tezca into just keeping his hands by his side, and cracking his knuckles there. The sound was amplified by the stone around them._

_Quetza gave an irritated sigh, glaring at his brother. Then he glanced back to Candle Maker, saying in a low voice, "The differing circumstances of the children's deaths_..._there __**is **__a design to it."_

_Finally Tezca made to storm off_—_and pointedly tread on Quetza's tail as he stalked away, veritably stabbing into it with his peg leg._

_The feather serpent's reaction was immediate, launching himself at his brother with fangs bared. Tezca was just as quick with his claws, and soon the Candle Maker had two quarreling brothers in his domain._

_Candle Maker let them brawl for a bit. Not out of any real desire to let them work out their sibling issues in their own weird aggressive way. The wax deity was just particularly furious with the both of them (even Quetza, despite his apparent attempt at something like kindness) and did not feel like stopping the pair from beating the shit out of each other. _

_After a few more minutes, Candle Maker finally intervened. "All right, break it up you two_—_**ENOUGH**__!" The wax deity clapped his hands, hard, sending off a shock wave that knocked both of the other gods off balance. The Candle Maker did not stop there; he whipped both arms to either side, psychically shoving Quetza and Tezca to opposite sides of the alcove._

_The brothers, both bloodied but not grievously so, continued to stare venomously at each other._

_"For the moment, you divulge too much, Quetza," snarled Tezca._

_"I divulge enough," hissed the feathered serpent._

_Candle Maker closed his eyes, pinching his nose. Releasing it and opening his eyes, he said, "Look, if you guys are done, and there's nothing left for us to talk about_—_"_

_"We will take our leave," Quetza said, taking the hint, while Tezca was already turning his back on his brother and Candle Maker..._

Xibalba's shrieks were dwindling, but not out of any true relief; the Candle Maker could hear the exhaustion in the infant's voice, he was screaming himself hoarse. His voice had to give out at some point, it could only take so much; and his small body had to tire out eventually.

The wax deity drew the fledgling god closer to him. He rubbed circles along the small back, again tried a soothing spell, although one had yet to barely work on Xibalba's distress.

Candle Maker sang another quiet lullaby to the infant deity, wishing him a reprieve.

**A/N: Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed. Feedback is always appreciated. I'm seeing La Muerte's "Balby" actually like Joaquin's "Manny"-childhood nicknames that stuck into adulthood. (I can't remember if Maria also called Manolo by "Manny.") I didn't see a ton of direct interaction between Candle Maker and the other two gods, Xibalba and La Muerte, on-screen during the movie; what was there was still kind of vague, vague enough that I felt I could see him as a parental/father/older brother figure to La Muerte and Xibalba, and that idea interested me a lot. Another part of why I liked that idea was the "Art Of" book stating that being a mentor played a part in how Candle Maker was designed-and I just expanded on that into making him an ultimate mentor figure, even to two death gods. And I thought his longer beard did make him seem older-something I found funny as the "Art Of" book said Xibalba's design was altered to give him a shorter beard to make him seem younger, and that **_**does**_** work; comparing the two designs, Xibalba with the extensively longer beard does seem older than Xibalba with the shorter beard. (This brainstorming predated creator/director tweets, and the fic started by this brainstorming is again AU.)**


	4. part 3

**Title: the sharpened heart**

**Fandom: The Book of Life**

**Summary: Pre-movie AU. How to create and shape a god of death.**

**A/N: Besides drawing from the canonical movie, also referring to the "Art Of" book. Started developing this before creator/director tweets, and will continue to not take those into account, and identifying this as clear AU. **

**Disclaimer: I own nothing related to The Book of Life.**

part 3

La Muerte was enjoying her mini-vacation from training with Quetza, especially when Xibalba's crying fits finally started to lessen, and he was back to more giggles and curious coos. He was also slowly getting bigger, and La Muerte had taken to watching him closely, eager to see more of his body parts grow in. Though there were so many possibilities, La Muerte had settled on betting that Xibalba would have green moss skin with dark clothes, based on the fact that he was a squirming bundle of dark cloth with green embroidery. She had tried to get Candlemaker involved with a wager of his own, but as always, he was neither very good at it or very interested. He simply wasn't suited to betting. In the end, La Muerte just really made the bet against herself.

But no matter how long she spied on him, Xibalba remained the same, if slightly bigger. When she'd grow bored with just staring at him, she would trying playing games with the younger deity. One time she arranged him with all her other dolls, and she was tickled with how well he fit in with them, being of comparable size and even made of similar stuff. Though of course among them he was the only one moving around. In fact, Xibalba knocked around the toys La Muerte had surrounded him with. But that was fine, the older child could still pretend that the fabric crowd arranged before her were all the future subjects she would rule over when she conquered Mictecacihuatl, with one overly enthusiastic subject played by Xibalba. La Muerte had played such games of pretend before, but to her surprise, she found it much more satisfying to have one of her pretend subjects actually move and make sounds.

The Candlemaker had popped his head into La Muerte's room to check on them. Finding she and Xibalba with all the dolls, the adult god had left with a satisifed nod and a pleased grin. The next day La Muerte visited the Land of the Living, and when she returned, she found the Candle Maker holding Xibalba and pointing to bright pictures of animals as the Book of Life flipped the pages.

"How about the bull, huh?" Candle Maker asked the infant deity, bouncing him slightly and making him giggle. La Muerte tilted her head at the sight, curious. Xibalba waved his fabric stubs for arms, cooing; but that only made the Candle Maker shake his head, though the smile never left his face. The wax deity spun his finger around, and the Book of Life obligingly turned the page. "Okay, not the bull—how about a bird, like this crow? It's a pretty dark color like you," said the Candle Maker, as he pointed to an image of said crow pictured in the ancient tome.

"What are you doing?" La Muerte asked, coming to her guardian's side. She bent down, peering expectantly at Xibalba; but still he was just a cloth bundle, no new parts had grown in, no skin, no eyes, absolutely nothing.

"Trying to pick out Balbito's first doll," Candle Maker said, as he spun his finger again and the Book of Life turned to another page, this time of an armadillo. "When he actually reaches out and touches the page the animal's on, I'll go with that, same as I did with you."

"So _that's_ how I got my Chiquita?" La Muerte asked, eyes wide; Chiquita was her oldest stuffed toy, in the image of a small chicken.

"Uh huh," Candle Maker said brightly as he had another page turn: crocodile.

The older child looked to the baby; but though Xibalba cooed and waved his appendages, he did not reach out and touch the page.

When Candle Maker gestured to the ancient tome to flip pages again, La Muerte burst out, "Counting down from right now, I wager Balby will pick the animal on the seventh page." And she had straightened up with a pleased grin, anticipating that Candle Maker would—

"Cool," the wax deity happily said, and checked again for Xibalba's reaction. La Muerte frowned and gave a loud sigh; she hoped maybe this time would be different, but no, Candle Maker just wasn't made for betting, why did she even bother...

The child deity was getting more excited as the younger deity still didn't touch a page and the Book of Life kept flipping, they were getting close to her wagered number. Grasshopper, crab, pig, polar bear, monkey—

"C'mon, just one more," La Muerte said, playfully drumming a beat on one of the Candle Maker's large arms as she watched the infant Xibalba. "Just ditch this one, and we're on to winning number seven—"

The baby deity cooed, and touched the page, with a picture of a bat. The sixth page.

"Are you kidding me?!" La Muerte snapped, throwing up her arms. She glared at the Candle Maker, obliviously happy as he threw Xibalba up into the air and caught him.

"Nice choice, little man," Candle Maker said, while the infant just gave another coo. "Y'know, bats are nocturnal creatures—that means they're only awake at night—"

And La Muerte rolled her eyes as Candle Maker went on and on about bats, showing Xibalba all sorts of information on them in the Book of Life.

###

Xibalba had adored his new bat toy the second Candle Maker had given it to him, and always carried it with him in his small stubby cloth arms. La Muerte had to admit that it was cute to see. But sometimes she liked to tease him with his own toy.

"And just like Candle Maker said, and the Book of Life has written down, bats are the only _flying_ mammals—" La Muerte sang as she moved the bat doll far above Xibalba's reaching arms. The infant deity was just whining for it, alternating between making small whimpering noises and annoyed grumbling. La Muerte was unmoved, knowing she would return the toy just before he started crying.

She smirked, impressed, when Xibalba actually paused, crawled closer, and started yanking insistently on her dress instead. Seemed like his brain had grown enough that he could actually think to change his strategy.

"So there are stories that say bats are in between mammals and birds," La Muerte continued, grinning. Then she frowned, when a thought occurred to her, and she stopped circling the bat doll around in the air. "But there are flying insects too—which, you know, some bats eat insects, because the Candle Maker said so, and there were pictures of that in the Book of Life—"

The child deity did not lower the bat doll, though she seemed to have forgotten that detail actually. The younger god still pulled on her dress.

"—so wouldn't bats really be in between mammals and birds _and_ insects...?" La Muerte continued pondering to herself, ignoring how Xibalba kept yaking on her dress—until something ripped.

But it was not La Muerte's dress that tore.

Xibalba's screaming was shrill as large black wings suddenly ripped out of his back, feathers flying. It even made La Muerte shout and dissolve into flowers out of sheer shock, dropping the bat doll.

Candle Maker was immediately there with the Book of Life fluttering anxiously at his side. Candle Maker knelt down, gently rubbing one of Xibalba's newly sprouted wings and murmuring quiet words of comfort and encouragment. That, at least, seemed done changing, and safe to touch; the Candle Maker didn't dare touch the infant anywhere else unless he was certain that area had stopped changing. Otherwise, he worried about touching a body part in mid-transformation, and doing more harm than good.

So he, the Book of Life, and La Muerte watched the screaming infant deity transform.

Cloth appendages reached out for the marigold petals spiraling in a startled frenzy, while they cracked and thinned and shifted into dark, fragile-looking bony arms that dripped with something equally dark. Cloth had changed to bone, that finally split, and now the infant had small skeletal, clawed fingers. Immediately La Muerte transformed back into her full body, and carefully touched the smaller skeletal hands with her own. She had done this before Candle Maker could stop her, and then he let her be, finding that Xibalba's new hands would not change form again. But La Muerte bit her lip when those small hands clutched her own, bony points biting into sugar flesh, and somehow making them feel sticky. They only left tiny stings, not any great pain, and the stickiness wasn't that uncomfortable, just strange. What made her wince and bite her lip harder was Xibalba's heightened screaming.

The cloth of his head changed into a large, black bony skull, and dark fangs cut across for a mouth, with a faint glow of green behind the pointed teeth. From his chin, small bars of dark bone stretched down. But La Muerte forgot to breath when two little red skulls grew out of the infant deity's new head, staring straight at her. Then green surrounded those skulls, and soon La Muerte found herself staring into big round green eyes with red skulls for irises. But not for long, as Xibalba squeezed those eyes shut and wailed, bright green tears spilling. Green in his eyes and mouth, and that green stretched into the neck he was growing, down to his chest and to his thinning waist—all of him was thinning and elognating and twisting.

Skeletal features seemed to finish with a dark ribcage wrapping around his green chest, and in between both was a red, rapidly pounding heart. The green had stopped at his waist, rather far below the rib cage, seeming to pool and stick a bit, harden into soft globs frozen in mid-drip—it made La Muerte think of green candle wax. From that globby border of green, the rest of him changed color, to a deep dark hue that seemed to contain blues and greens along with the black, and again made La Muerte think of candle wax. That color remained, all the way down to his singular platform touching the ground—so far he had no legs, just like she and Candle Maker.

The older child just stared at the small silver crown that had popped into existence on top of Xibalba's head, with two small curving antlers attached to it, and small grinning skulls that dangled from those striped antlers. Below that and above the eyes were soft fluffy white eyebrows, and other green symbols were engraving themselves into Xibalba's skeletal face.

Seconds passed into minutes while the infant deity cried and clutched La Muerte's hands, with Candle Maker gently rubbing his new feathered wings. Finally certain the changes were done and the rest of the body was composed, Candle Maker gently took all of Xibalba into his arms, and La Muerte let go of his new skeletal hands. Her eyes widened, as black sticky stuff stretched between her hands and Xibalba's, until it became a thin thread that quietly broke. The older child rubbed her hands, touching the small holes poked into the sugar by small pointy fingers, and examining the black sticky stuff left behind. Her hands still didn't hurt, and didn't even sting anymore; they were still sticky, and they just felt weird. What made them sticky? What made up Xibalba now, besides blackened bones? Sticky candy, like taffy, toffee, molasses? Candle wax like Candle Maker, just really melted?

La Muerte broke away from her investigation, looking up and watching the Candle Maker comfort the infant Xibalba. "It's okay, Balbito," said the wax deity, "It's okay, it's over now..."

Still the infant deity cried and burrowed deeper into Candle Maker's embrace. This was something La Muerte had seen Xibalba do before, but now there were wings that were also curling toward the Candle Maker for comfort. And the expression of anguish was that much clearer now that Xibalba had an actual face, until he buried that into the Candle Maker's shoulder, and his cries became muffled.

La Muerte moved to pick up Xibalba's stuffed bat. Then she stopped, staring at her hands still covered in black sticky whatever-it-was. She didn't want the toy to get sticky too. Hesitantly, she tried psychically lifting it, like Quetza had been teaching her to do with other things. La Muerte managed to levitate the bat doll up, though it was wobbly in the air. "Here," she said, holding it up to the Candle Maker.

The wax deity took it, thanking her, but somehow that just made La Muerte feel guiltier. It did not take long for the Candle Maker to coax Xibalba to look up once he bumped the toy's head against his own new skull. But the infant deity only clutched the doll tight to him and went back to burying his cries into the Candle Maker's shoulder. And it was then La Muerte realized her attempt to keep the bat doll clean had been pointless, remembering how she had gotten the stickiness from Xibalba's own new hands in the first place, and those held the toy now. She reminded herself that it was all stupid worrying over stupid nothing, the toy could be cleaned.

The older child frowned, eyes downcast and staring at the floor where her dress touched, and wishing that had been the thing to rip instead.

"He'll be okay," Candle Maker said, one hand gently ruffling her hair. (Though the adult god regretted not warning La Muerte about this after all, at least when Xibalba had started to grow a little bigger.)

###

La Muerte had marveled at Xibalba's new teeth, for when he had calmed down, they changed shape. The fangs he had when he cried, were now square teeth once he was cooing again and babbling to his bat toy; or nonexistent, and his mouth was just smooth. After the shock of the transformation, La Muerte thought that though the infant had thinned, twisted and elongated, he had not grown as much as she thought; his size pre-transformation hadn't changed that much. He was still just a little baby, even if the only thing soft about him now were those wings. In fact, his new wings were too big for him, and the sight made her giggle.

"He just has to grow into them," Candle Maker had said of those new appendages.

The younger sugar deity laughed. "His wings are gonna grow faster than him," she replied, and flicked one of the skulls dangling from Xibalba's crown-antlers. The infant deity just smiled at her, and continued chewing on his bat toy. ("He's teething now," Candle Maker had said of that new habit.)

Lying on her belly to be more at Xibalba's eye level, La Muerte said, "His pupils are red like me."

"I'm not surprised, with how often you started to watch him, waiting for him to change—he certainly got an eyeful of you," Candle Maker replied, half-teasing, half-serious. "And then with how you stick out."

La Muerte arched a brow at her guardian. "Stick out?"

"Well, there isn't really anything else so..._red_, in this cave besides you," Candle Maker explained, sweeping an arm out at their surroundings.

The child deity blinked, then reconsidered; stone gray-blue in the rock walls, various shades of yellow in the candles and their fire, white and yellow in the Candle Maker himself, more warmth in the gray of his stone jewelry...but yes, no true red, except on her. Candle Maker was right, she must have stuck out like a sore thumb to Xibalba.

Upon closer inspection, La Muerte concluded Xibalba was not made of wax like the Candle Maker. Nor was he made of sweet sticky candy**.** What made up Xibalba was actually something entirely different. The Candle Maker had to explain to her what it was.

"Little boys are made of _tar_ and everything _icky_," La Muerte would sing afterward, with delight in her voice, even if Xibalba did not understand, while the Candle Maker only rolled his eyes.

**A/N: Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed. Feedback is always appreciated. After watching some of The Book of Life in Spanish (since I wasn't sure if they'd release a Spanish track alongside English on the DVD release) and hearing "Balby" translated as "Balbito," I had to use it. La Muerte sticks with "Balby," while Candle Maker favors "Balbito." Infant Xibalba in this part now looks more like scribblescrabblesdabble's design for child Xibalba.**


End file.
